Chapter 49

49

P ain ripped me out of the dark. I gasped, my eyes opening and then squeezing shut against the bright light around me.

“Easy,” a warm voice admonished.

I managed to crack an eye and saw Daniel perched on the edge of the chair across from me.

No, not Daniel.

Dimitri .

I swallowed a wave of nausea that burned up my throat. My bones throbbed and ached, my joints were swollen and stiff. I squeezed my eyes shut.

Maybe I had fallen off another cliff.

The sound of the top twisting off a plastic bottle filled the air. “Drink this.”

“What is it?” I asked, my voice a ragged murmur.

“It’ll help with the pain.” He pressed the cold bottle into my hand.

I struggled to clear the haze of pain and fog from my memories. “What happened?”

He sighed softly. “A lot.”

“I don’t—”

“Drink it,” he ordered, thrusting the bottle under my nose.

I jerked back, the sudden movement snapping the last of my control. Thankfully he must have read my mind because an empty trash can was shoved onto my lap just in time for me to vomit into it.

Dimitri sucked in a sharp breath and waited for me to stop heaving before pulling the bucket out of my hands.

With a pitiful, humiliating whimper, I screwed my eyes shut, willing the pain away. I sank deeper into the buttery soft leather of the chair that cradled me.

“ Now will you drink this?” he asked, exasperated as he tried handing me the bottle again.

I would have drank arsenic if it got rid of the pain.

I fumbled for the container, tilting it awkwardly until the thick liquid touched my lips. It had a strangely minty taste, and even stranger, I felt better after I swallowed the first mouthful.

By the time I drained the bottle, the pain had receded enough that I could sit up. The cobwebs of my memories started to clear.

Oh, God.

I wished I had just drank arsenic.

I didn’t bother stifling the cry that ripped out of my throat as I remembered the last few seconds before I lost consciousness.

The memory of the explosion tore apart my mind, fragmented memories became shrapnel that shredded my soul.

Remy .

Dimitri saw the shift in my demeanor, his entire stance changing. “Whoa, hey, calm down.”

“There was an explosion!” Fuck the lingering pain. I scrambled to sit upright.

“I know,” he said softly.

“What the hell happened?” I demanded, looking around wildly.

An airplane.

I was on an airplane.

A private one, if I had to guess, slightly smaller than the Blackwater one. I craned my neck to look around. Two men sat towards the front of the plane, two more in the back. Tate was asleep in the chair to my right across the aisle.

As my anxiety ratcheted up a notch, mixing with my desperation, I reached out for my wolf, ready to fight my way out of this if I had to.

There was nothing there.

This was worse than when I had suppressed her in Long Mesa because even then, I could still feel her buried somewhere deep inside of me. Even if I couldn’t always reach her, she was there .

Now there was just a silent void. An endless chasm of silence.

Chest heaving as I started to spiral into a panic attack, I glared at Dimitri. “Where am I? Where’s Remy?”

Dimitri held his hands up. “Skye, I can explain everything, but you need to calm down.”

“I’m on an airplane with people I don’t know, a guy who kidnapped me, and one of my friends is unconscious next to me!” I exploded. “Don’t tell me to calm down!”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “First? I didn’t kidnap you.”

“Then how did I get here?”

“What do you remember?” he countered, lowering his hand from his face slowly.

My fingers curled around the arm rests.

What did I remember?

I gasped as the memories swept in faster than a tsunami. “I remember looking for Remy. The explosion.”

He nodded. “It knocked you out. I picked you up and got you out of there.”

“Where’s Remy?” I whispered the question again, fear filling the hot places of fury with ice.

My eyes swept the cabin of the plane again, desperately hoping to see Remy somewhere.

Dimitri cleared his throat and leaned forward. “Skye, the main lodge was obliterated in the blast.”

I started shaking my head.

“Remy was last seen inside, going into one of the meeting rooms.” His tone was infinitely, uncharacteristically gentle.

“No,” I whispered, my stomach lurching.

I was going to be sick.

Again.

“I pulled you and Tate out,” he continued. He jerked his chin at Tate. “We had to sedate Tate to get her to come with us, but Skye, that blast took out most of the Alphas in North America. If not all of them. It leveled the building.”

“You’re wrong,” I replied desperately. My knuckles turned white as my grip tightened.

The pity in his gaze made me flinch.

“I hope I am,” he agreed. “I still have some people I trust looking for survivors. Getting you out before the authorities got in was my priority. Not Remy, not Gabe.”

“We have to go back!” I twisted in my seat, looking out the window of the plane. All I saw was white clouds and blue skies.

“We’re halfway over the Pacific,” he said with a frown. “We’re not going back.”

I leaned forward with a growl. “I don’t care . Take me home. Now!”

“I’m taking you somewhere safe,” he replied, looking away.

I slammed a fist against the wall of the plane hard enough that one of the men in front twisted to look at us.

“Take me home to my pack. Now .”

He gave me a slightly bored look. “Or what?”

“Or I’ll tear this plane apart and everyone in it,” I vowed, reaching again for my wolf.

His lips pressed into a thin line. “No, you won’t.” He jerked a chin at one of my hands. “That won’t let you.”

I followed his gaze to my left wrist where a silver bangle was molded around my skin, just above my hand. It was so lightweight that I barely felt it.

I lifted my hand, the silver glinting in the light that streamed in through the window.

“What the hell is this?” I twisted my arm, but I didn’t see a clasp or mechanism to take it off. It was a perfectly unbroken circle of metal.

“It blocks your wolf,” he explained.

My gaze rose to him. “What does that even mean?”

“I’m not entirely sure how the magic works, but it smothers the bond between you and your wolf.” He grimaced. “I had a feeling you wouldn’t be exactly stable once you woke up, and the idea of a wolf tearing through the plane wasn’t exactly smart.”

His lips twisted into a sort of smirk. “You might have survived falling off a cliff, princess, but none of us would survive a twenty-thousand foot drop from the sky.”

“Magic?” I repeated with a hollow laugh. “Maybe you’re the one who got knocked out in that explosion.”

“I wish,” he muttered darkly. “I know the doc told you about the origins of the original pack. How shifters were created.”

“That’s fiction,” I snapped. “Magic isn’t real. It’s a... story.”

He arched a single dark brow. “Is it? Can you shift right now? Feel your wolf? Feel anything other than your basic humanness?”

I tried again, not wanting to believe him, but I couldn’t feel her. Worse yet, I couldn’t feel Remy. Our bond was just... gone.

There was a hollow space in my chest where he once lived. Darkness crawled out from the vast emptiness of it, threatening to swallow me whole.

“Take it off,” I begged, changing tactics. If I could connect to my wolf, I could connect to Remy.

He couldn’t be gone. Bonded or not, I would know it. I would feel it.

Dimitri looked genuinely apologetic. “I can’t.”

I closed my eyes briefly, sucking in a deep breath. “I promise I won’t—”

“Skye,” he cut me off with a shake of his head, “I can’t . It’s magic. One of the witches will remove it when we land. I don’t have the ability to take it off. And short of cutting off your wrist, it’s not going anywhere.”

“Magic isn’t real ,” I repeated stubbornly. I tried to slip a finger under the band, but there was zero give.

“Don’t be deliberately stupid, princess,” he told me. “It’s not a good look.”

“Fine,” I snapped, throwing up my hands. “Then we’ll let a freaking witch take it off when we land... which is where, exactly?”

“My pack,” he answered.

“ Your pack,” I echoed with a scoff, rolling my eyes. “You said your pack is from—”

I stopped myself as I quickly, soberingly, remembered where he was from. Where his pack was from.

Fresh panic clawed at my throat. “I can’t go to Russia!”

He shrugged. “Actually, you can. That’s where this plane is headed. Conveniently, you’re on it, so you’re going to Russia, too.”

“Why? Why are you taking me to freaking Russia ?” I demanded, my voice raising an octave.

“I told you,” he replied, meeting my gaze levelly, “I had orders to get you out safely.”

“Orders from who ?”

“My Alpha.”

“What the hell could your Alpha want with me?” I snapped. “I’m no one.”

“Actually,” he sighed and leaned back in his seat, “you aren’t, princess.”

My eyes narrowed. “You keep calling me that.”

A small smirk played on his lips. “Because that’s what you are.”

I snorted. “Right.”

“The Alpha of my pack is your father.”

My body froze. Everything stopped as the air whooshed out of my chest.

“I never met my father,” I finally said. “How the hell do you know who he is?”

“That file Elias had on you?” Dimitri gave me a grim sort of look. “He figured it out. He figured out who your father is. Even managed a DNA test and everything.”

“And who is he?” I twisted my fingers together on my lap to hide the way they shook. Hell, my entire body was shaking. Maybe it was a panic attack, maybe it was fear or adrenaline.

Everything in me craved the one person who wasn’t here.

Another piece of my heart cracked and broke away.

“He’s the Alpha of the Narodnaya pack in Russia.” He paused, whether for dramatic flair or because he was genuinely worried I was about to lose my shit, I didn’t know. “The Narodnaya pack is the first pack that ever existed, Skye.”

“And my... father is the Alpha.” I tasted the words as I spoke them, digesting what he was saying.

“Nikolai Dashkov,” he confirmed with a nod. “As his daughter, that makes you royalty amongst our pack and the European and Asian packs.”

My head snapped up. “Dashkov? That’s your last name.”

Dimitri smiled at me, his eyes practically sparkling. “That’s because he’s my father, too. I’m your brother, Skye.”